The Pentagon’s spy agency is to be reformed into a military sibling of the CIA with 1,600 clandestine operatives collecting intelligence overseas five years from now. The civilian spies will train and oversee them.
The prime targets for the overhauled Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) would be Chinese military, Iranian and North Korean arms transfers, and Islamist militant groups in Africa, reports The Washington Post, citing a number of officials. Most spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the project.
The plan is likely to raise concerns that the expansion of DIA’s clandestine operations will be accompanied by an escalation in lethal strikes and other missions outside public view. There is a potential oversight gap due to differences in legal requirements between military and civilian spies.
The Pentagon wanted to beef up overseas DIA operations as early as under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, but at the time it led to turf conflicts with the CIA. Now the civilian agency is supporting the reform, because it will keep much control over DIA missions.
The DIA operatives “for the most part are going to be working for CIA station chiefs,” one congressional official said. A CIA clearance will be needed to enter a particular country or recruit an informant.
The military’s interest is to collect intelligence on subjects that the CIA would not cover for some reason.
No comments:
Post a Comment